A Wish for Ashley

I’ve always been the type of person to set a big goal, work to (hopefully) achieve it, and rather than celebrate get caught up in analysis of all the things along the way that I did wrong or could have done better.  When I was in the fifth grade my friend Holly and I decided we should “do good”… so we decided we would plan a school wide bake sale and donate the proceeds to a local food pantry.  We asked all our fellow Student Council members to support the sale by either signing up to bring in a baked good or donating $3 so that we could get supplies to bake more goods.  We ended up with a lot of cash (by fifth grade standards) and Holly and I walked excitedly to Market Basket to buy brownie mix, chocolate chips, and Rice Krispies.  We wanted to do this all on our own.  We marched our supplies straight into the kitchen and without considering that neither of us had ever baked before  we got to work.  Rice Krispies Treats seemed easy enough to start.  3 tablespoons of butter, melted.  Add marshmallows.  No problem.  Holly and I unwrapped 3 sticks of butter, waited until it turned into soup and dumped in the marshmallows.  Now, the neon yellow color of the mixture, and the resulting florescent color of the end product marshmellow treats should have been a tip off that perhaps 3 tablespoons of butter was not the equivalent of three sticks of butter.  But no, we thought we could do anything.  Surely the treats were suppose to be yellow.  We kept with that mentality until my mom came in to check on us… and flipped out.  We were banned from the kitchen, she finished the rest of the baking.

Our bake sale was a success… .again, by fifth grade standards.  We made $257 for the food pantry, and landed in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune newspaper (as it was named then), smiling while standing behind plates of cookies.  However, when I remember that experience, I don’t remember the success and the (local) glory. I remember that we failed at making Rice Krispie Treats that wouldn’t immediately clog an artery; I remember that we didn’t accomplish our goal of doing it all on our own.  My mom finished the baking.

Through this whole A Wish for Ashley project, I have had to stay acutely aware of my tendency to get caught up in my failures.  Why did I not try X to find Ashley when I was search 6 years ago?  Why did I not think to talk to Y person about this potential link to Ashley before?  My Ashley Helpers and all other A Wish for Ashley-ers are great about distracting me from focusing on the little things I could have done differently because they are always offering ideas and help that get me to look ahead.  There are peaks and valleys.  There are Rice Krispies Treats I’ll never be able to bake, and Ashley search strategies someone might mention that I never before thought to explore.   But there are also $257 checks; there are also people who email who tell me how our search has inspired them to pursue their big goals.   I can collect the money, go to Market Basket and set up the kitchen… but I, too, have limitations and need to ask for help.  I’m trying to get better of that.  In the meantime, keep pointing out that the neon yellow treats might mean that I need to make a second attempt. It'll all pay off in the end.

With love (and now a sudden craving for baked goods),

Audra